3 Parenting Tips for Building Character in Your Angry Kids

If 3 character tips could stop your angry child from exploding, would you use them? If so, look inside for 3 parenting ideas that are sure to help.

Temper can be a volcano blazing out of control. It blows its top without thinking. It demands what it wants or else. There’s no room for reason. If your child’s a volcano, you’ve got work to do.
When your child is calm, take time to discuss anger, its cause, and its solution.

I know you’re wondering how. Before I tell you, grab a piece of paper and ask your child to draw a volcano at the top. When your child is in a good mood, discuss, write out, and memorize the 3 truths below. Those truths are to be posted on your bulletin board, wall, or refrigerator. They’ll remind your child to think without exploding.

Character Tips – 3 Irrational Ideas to Discuss and 3 Truths to Teach:

Consider discussing the following irrational ideas one at a time. Ask your child to brainstorm more examples. Write out and memorize the truths that follow.

First Irrational Idea - Things have to go my way. Talk about the weather. Remember a time when your daughter wanted sunshine but it rained. Perhaps it rained during her soccer game. No matter how hard she wanted sunshine the weather didn’t go away.

Tell her, “Lots of things don’t go our way. When you and I get angry, we’re demanding that things we can’t control go our way. But we’re not the King of the Universe. We don’t have the power.”

Brainstorm other situations that prove we’re not the King of the Universe. Discuss why exploding won’t help but using our gift of reason will.

Action Step – Write the truth, “Things don’t have to go my way” under your child’s picture of the volcano. Tell her to memorize this truth and say it often when she feels angry.

Second Irrational Idea - People have to behave the way I want them to. Discuss times when people didn’t act the way your son wanted. Perhaps his teacher disciplined him when he wasn’t the one who bullied the little girl on the playground. Tell him, “People don’t act the way you want because they act the way they want.”

Brainstorm and discuss other situations when people didn’t do what he wanted, like when his sister wouldn’t loan him some money.

Action Step – Write the truth, People don’t have to act the way I want, on the volcano paper. Tell him to memorize this truth and say it often when he’s tempted to blow his top.

Third Irrational Idea - I have to get the things I want. Discuss a time when your daughter didn’t receive the birthday gift she wanted. Perhaps it was a child’s guitar. Yet she survived the disappointment. Tell her, “There will be lots of times you won’t get what you want. Bursting your top won’t get you what you want. But it might get you in trouble.”

Brainstorm and discuss other situations where she didn’t get what she wanted.

Action Step – Write the truth, “I don’t have to get what I want,” on the piece of paper. Tell her to memorize it and calmly say it when she’s upset.

Conclusion ~ Character Tips that Stop Your Angry Child from Exploding:

Be your child’s model. When things go wrong for you, calm yourself aloud with one of the above truths. Discuss the 3 parenting tips and their truths whenever good examples arise. Praise your child when she or he repeats the words. If you do, you’ll be turning an exploding mind into a rational mind. You’ll be building character too.